Some of the U.S. Olympic Team will be competing at their first Games, and others at their fifth. Age, however, doesn’t necessarily equal experience.
Check out the chart below with the birthdays of all of the Olympic Team swimmers, and then read up on some birthday stats under the chart:
Swimmer | Birthday | Age as of 8/5 (Opening Ceremonies) |
Cammile Adams | 9/11/91 | 24 |
Haley Anderson | 11/20/91 | 24 |
Kathleen Baker | 2/28/97 | 19 |
Elizabeth Beisel | 8/18/92 | 23 |
Maya Dirado | 4/5/93 | 23 |
Hali Flickinger | 7/7/94 | 22 |
Missy Franklin | 5/10/95 | 21 |
Molly Hannis | 3/13/92 | 24 |
Lilly King | 2/10/97 | 19 |
Katie Ledecky | 3/17/97 | 19 |
Simone Manuel | 8/2/96 | 20 |
Melanie Margalis | 12/30/91 | 24 |
Katie Meili | 4/16/91 | 25 |
Cierra Runge | 3/7/96 | 20 |
Allison Schmitt | 6/7/90 | 26 |
Leah Smith | 4/19/95 | 21 |
Olivia Smoliga | 10/12/94 | 21 |
Amanda Weir | 3/11/86 | 30 |
Kelsi Worrell | 7/15/94 | 22 |
Dana Vollmer | 11/13/87 | 28 |
Abbey Weitzeil | 12/3/96 | 19 |
Nathan Adrian | 12/7/88 | 27 |
Gunnar Bentz | 1/3/96 | 20 |
Jack Conger | 9/26/94 | 21 |
Kevin Cordes | 8/13/93 | 22 |
Caeleb Dressel | 8/16/96 | 19 |
Conor Dwyer | 1/10/89 | 27 |
Anthony Ervin | 5/26/81 | 35 |
Jimmy Feigen | 9/26/89 | 26 |
Townley Haas | 12/13/96 | 19 |
Connor Jaeger | 4/30/91 | 25 |
Chase Kalisz | 3/7/94 | 22 |
Jay Litherland | 8/24/95 | 20 |
Ryan Lochte | 8/3/84 | 32 |
Cody Miller | 1/9/92 | 24 |
Ryan Murphy | 7/2/95 | 21 |
Jacob Pebley | 9/17/93 | 22 |
Michael Phelps | 6/30/85 | 31 |
Blake Pieroni | 11/15/95 | 20 |
David Plummer | 10/9/85 | 30 |
Josh Prenot | 7/28/93 | 23 |
Sean Ryan | 8/13/92 | 23 |
Tom Shields | 7/11/91 | 25 |
Clark Smith | 4/17/95 | 21 |
Jordan Wilimovsky | 4/22/94 | 22 |
Ryan Held | 6/27/95 | 21 |
Now, let’s get into some birthday stats. Who doesn’t love birthday stats?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY…
- … to Simone Manuel! Today, August 2, is Manuel’s 20th birthday. If she can swim exactly one second per year she’s been alive in the 50 free final, she will win gold and break the world record by well over three seconds. That’s impressive!
- … to Ryan Lochte! Tomorrow, August 3, is Lochte’s 32nd birthday. He should be going gray soon– oh wait, he already did.
- … to Kevin Cordes, Sean Ryan, Caeleb Dressel, and Elizabeth Beisel! They will all celebrate birthdays during the Olympics– Cordes and Ryan share an August 13th birthday, while Dressel’s is the 16th and Beisel’s the 18th. Cordes could be swimming in the 400 medley relay final on his birthday, and a gold medal would be a pretty sweet gift. Ryan, meanwhile, gets to swim an open water 10K to celebrate his 23rd. Fun!
OLDEST & YOUNGEST
- On the men’s side, it’s Anthony Ervin who’s the oldest at the age of 35. Amanda Weir, at 30, takes the cake* for the women. The birthday cake, if you will!
- The babies of the team are older than usual. No eager 14- and 15-year-olds this time around, with the youngest woman being Katie Ledecky at 19. She was 15 at her first Olympics in 2012, and is joined by Lilly King, Kathleen Baker, and Abbey Weitzeil (all 19 years old). Caeleb Dressel and Townley Haas are the youngest of the men’s team, though Haas won’t turn 20 until December.
*We cannot confirm that Weir, or any of Team USA, will actually get to eat cake during the Olympics. Cake is a known taper-breaker, and should be devoured at the discretion of your coaches, parents, fans, and team doctor.
OTHER STUFF
- Average age (both genders): 23.3. My high school math class from a few years back finally comes in handy (but I still had to use a calculator). Maya Dirado is the closest to the average. As of today, she is a little over 23.30 years old. Congrats, Maya! More of Team USA should be 23.3, like you.
- Average female age: 22.6
- Average male age: 24.0
- Oldest rookie: David Plummer, who’s 30. Of the gray-haired members of Team USA, he might be the only one who’s naturally going gray.
- Youngest veteran (this is at least their 2nd Games): Katie Ledecky, who’s been to 2 and is also the youngest member of the team. Shout out to Beisel– the 23 year old is only slightly older than the average age, but this will be her third Olympics.
- Combined age: 1,073. That’s a lot of years. This is also a useless statistic.
Karl. Did you find the average of the swimmers ages at their last birthdays, or their actual ages?. For example did you figure Maya’s age to be simply 23 or 23.30? The average of the actual ages should be close to 0.5 more than the birthday average.
Wait, Matt Grevers didn’t make the team?
Not only did he make the team, he broke a world record
Made it in the 50 back. He’s the favorite
Sorry guys, I just got out of boot camp and thought he made a relay or something.
Anthony Ervin was already an Olympic Champion when some of these youngsters were only 3 years old. Let that sink in haha
Do we have a Malcolm Gladwell breakdown of Olympic swimmers birth month?
No, but we have a Ms.Cleo breakdown of the zodiac signs in another article.
Conspicuous by her omission (from this list) is two-time Olympian Lia Neal.
I reckon Lia is 21 (or will be soon).
Comparison of the ages of the Women’s team in 2012 and 2016
2012:
Average Age 21.6
Median Age 21
Mode (most occurring age) 20
Range (difference between highest and lowest age) 14
Standard Deviation (measure of variance among the ages) 3.17
2016:
Average Age 22.6
Median Age 22
Mode Age 24
Range 11
Standard Deviation 2.95
The women’s team appears to be older than the 2012 team, with a smaller spread and variation among the data.
No more high school girls, rare in swimming. Girls/Women team one of the oldest.
At 14 years old, my friends daughter quit swimming because her coach told her that girls peak at 14 and she would not get better. Hopefully coaches will realize that athletes aren’t over the hill at a certain age and swimmers can get better as they mature (mentally and physically).
Quit different than it used to be before pro swimming came to be – used to be that swimmers were 21 when they graduated college, and only a few stuck around for a year or 2 to make the next Olympics. I’d love to see a trned line of the average age over the last 50-60 years. And just wonder what some of the greats of the past might have done had they trained until they were 30.
Comparison of the ages of the Men’s team in 2012 and 2016
2012:
Average Age 25.75
Median Age 24.5
Mode (most occurring age) 24
Range (difference between highest and lowest age) 15
Standard Deviation (measure of variance among the ages) 3.39
2016:
Average Age 23.92
Median Age 22
Mode Age 21
Range 16
Standard Deviation 4.22
So in general we can say this team is younger than the 2012 team, however there is a greater variance in the ages.
Fun article